This Week’s Biggest NBN And Telco News: Telstra’s Mobile Network Goes Down, Again

Here’s where we round up all the Aussie news around the ‘net about the ‘net, every week. Check in here for a quick primer on everything from piracy to privacy to data retention and the NBN.

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This week:


Telstra Had Another Mobile Outage, Says Sorry With Another Day Of Free Data
At around 6pm last night, reports of outages on the Telstra network — again — started to emerge. The network began sporadically working again from 7:30pm onwards, and for the inconvenience Telstra are giving away a day of free data on Sunday 3 April.

“We sincerely apologise to our customers for the inconvenience we have caused again,” a Telstra spokesperson said this morning. “As a way of saying we’re sorry we’ll be providing a free data day for all of our mobile customers on Sunday 3 April.


NBN HFC Rollout Known Internally As ‘Operation Clusterf***’: Conroy
The rollout of the hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) part of the troubled national broadband network is known internally as “Operation Clusterf—“, says Labor senator Stephen Conroy. “I know the internal nickname you’ve got for the HFC rollout, and it’s not fit to actually describe on the public record: Operation Cluster … something,” Mr Conroy told NBN chief executive Bill Morrow during a heated exchange at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The Turnbull government and the company rolling out its so-called “multi-technology mix” have been under increasing scrutiny over the viability of the HFC part of its network rollout, which uses outdated Telstra and Optus HFC cables (the kind used for receiving Foxtel).


Tasmania Is Cut Off From The World
The Basslink cable connecting Tasmania to mainland Australia has been cut. Repair crews don’t yet know exactly where the fault is, the repair bill is projected to be “phenomenal”, and full power and Internet connectivity isn’t expected to be fully restored until May. Customers of iiNet and Internode in particular are struggling, with services like Steam and peer-to-peer downloading throttled or blocked completely over the weekend.


ACCC Says NBN Prices Are Fine, Puts A Cap On Them
“The ACCC is satisfied that NBN Co’s prices did not exceed the applicable maximum regulated prices in 2014-15,” said ACCC Commissioner Cristina Cifuentes in a statement today.

It was revealed, however, that the ACCC will be making yearly assessments of NBN’s revenue — and will put a cap on the prices that NBN is allowed to charge.


NBN Says Targets Are Being Met, Internet Australia Says It’s Not Good Enough
Last night NBN chairman Dr Ziggy Switkowski assured audiences of ABCs The Business that the company is meeting all of its milestones, adding that “the progress in terms of copper has been fabulously fast”.

But internet users’ lobby group Internet Australia says this is “hardly the issue”


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